


return policy

by songbird97



Category: Free!
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Supernatural Elements, Time Travel, but also thank goodness he doesn't, in which haru should probably just take rin to a damn hospital for amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-10 17:05:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8925220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songbird97/pseuds/songbird97
Summary: It's brighter today than he thought it would be.
  "I'd LOVE to see some 'went to bed age 17, woke up age 25 in bed with my friend and apparently we're dating/sleeping together and have been for X years but I don't remember that at all and I'm only in high school and what is going on and how do I get back to my normal timeline?'"





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fencer_x](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fencer_x/gifts).



> I tried to follow the timeline that Free! supposedly takes place in for this, but since I'm terrible at keeping track of timelines please excuse any small mistakes, I am by no means an expert. Anyway, Happy Holidays! This got so much longer than I meant for it to, omg, so I tried to keep the scenes cut down so as not to bore you. Fingers crossed they're not too choppy? Regardless, this was such a fun prompt to write, so I hope it reads as such! And that you find some enjoyment in my horrifically disjointed, rambling writing. <3

It’s brighter today than he thought it would be.

Rin was pretty damn sure it was supposed to be raining, anyway. That's what his phone said; and he knows that his weather app can be pretty useless sometimes, but the storm clouds that had been brewing all night didn't disprove anything, and he's pretty sure the disappointment in Haru’s expression (in his glance outside, in the acceptance that they wouldn't be able to swim in the ocean anytime soon) was palpable enough that he wasn't dreaming it.

But his alarm isn’t going off, and this is what jumpstarts the idea that something isn't right.

His alarm isn’t going off, like he had set it to at six o’clock. That way, if they were so inclined, he and Haru could get ready quick enough to go on a run before the rain was supposed to start—but he can’t hear the familiar chimes, because of which he knows how late in the morning it must be, and yet it isn’t raining, anyway. Either that, or he’s woken up before his alarm was set.

This is what makes him reach for his phone—and this is what makes him aware of his elevation, and the fact that he isn’t on Haru’s floor, and the unmistakable slip of sheets around his waist when he moves.

He'd fallen asleep in a futon. He remembers this clearly because he remembers watching Haru roll it out even though Rin had offered to, remembers scoffing at Haru's best-sarcastic-offer for Rin to sleep in his bed, and remembers very abruptly shutting that offer down. He remembers the hall lights shining under Haru's door and into his eyes, and having to roll onto his other side to escape it. 

He should be waking up on the floor, too.

Confusion takes a hold of him before anything else does. Blearily Rin glances around, taking account of the fact that he is in Haru’s room, surely—that’s the window he waved to Makoto through the night before, that’s the door he stumbled through, dripping wet from a quick shower, and this, below him, is Haru’s bed.

And next to him is Haru.

They’ve shared beds before. An image of a hotel room across an ocean paints itself briefly in Rin’s mind—but they haven’t shared this one, in Haru’s house, in Haru’s room, since they were kids. Not at any point that Rin can remember, and certainly not last night.

Haru is here, though, laying next to him, facing him, asleep. The sheets rise and fall with his back as he breathes. It is a late and beautiful morning when it should be very early and close to raining, and Rin has been asleep in Haru’s bed.

His joints ache and his limbs feel heavier than normal, and it is likely because of this that Rin doesn’t just launch himself out of the sheets entirely. Instead he tips his feet over the side as slowly as he needs to make sure Haru stays asleep—and drops the sheets behind him. Haru makes a noise, shifts his shoulder back like he's waking up, and Rin freezes. But the movement is short-lived and soon Haru's still again, just curls his arm around the space where Rin had previously been, and Rin thinks that if he stayed Haru could be holding onto him right now, ducking his head in towards him, and then becomes embarrassed enough by this thought to leave the room entirely.

The futon he’d been sleeping in is gone, he notices. Rin steps past the area where it had been laid, and wonders, all at once, if he’s still just asleep. It’s logical that he’s dreaming, after all, and even including waking up next to Haru, it’s hardly the weirdest dream he’s ever had. He pinches himself, hard, and the house around him stays; so does Haru, in bed.

If he isn't asleep; if he had somehow moved to Haru's bed in the middle of the night, at least Haru hadn't woken up to see him. At least he'd woken up first and escaped the room, can use the excuse that he'd put the futon away before Haru had woken up. Haru would believe it, or would at least have no reason not to, and Rin uses this to quell the embarrassment sitting visibly in his face, curling his hands.

He heads for the stairs.

It's a mistake, maybe. He’s in his head now, and it’s throwing him off—every inch of Haru’s house feels different to him. It had felt like that after he and Haru had first become friends again, after years of not seeing it, but that had all felt like familiarizing himself over again. This only feels like he’s a stranger in a place he shouldn’t be. There’s a flurry of dread in his chest, aching deeper with every step he takes.

He gets through the sliding doors, the floor cold under his feet on his way to the kotatsu, which is stacked high with magazines, charts, and schedules. Training schedules. Next to it all sits a few unfamiliar suitcases, strewn and tipped over like someone had carried them all in and then left them there in a hurry to do something else.

It hadn't been like this the night before. Rin thinks, blearily, that he doesn't recognize any of this.

 _What the fuck,_  is what he thinks, and then for good measure, "What the fuck."

The training schedules are in his handwriting, with notes along the margins in a messy scrawl that can't belong to anyone else but Haru. But this is absurd, because he's never made one personally with Haru before, at least not handwritten and definitely not here. He doesn't recognize the magazines, either, just takes note of the fact that they're all different kinds of sports issues and that he's pretty sure Haru never bothers with reading this shit, so why are they here? Why would either of them care?

Coffee, he thinks; he needs coffee. And then he thinks that Haru doesn't drink coffee but maybe drinks caffeinated tea, and heads to the kitchen either way. 

Their first trophy, sitting on a shelf in the corner, catches his eye, and he stops.

Then a slew of picture frames—at least a dozen, much more than he remembers Haru ever having—sitting around the trophy on the other shelves. There’s one of Haru and Makoto as kids, one of Haru’s grandmother, one of Haru and Makoto and Nagisa and Rei, in a stadium Rin can’t recognize. When had they been to any competition, all four of them, that Rin hadn’t been there for as well?

Everything; the bed, the house, the kotatsu, the pictures—it’s all starting to feel more and more like a dream with every passing second. Rin steps closer to the shelves to get a better look at the other pictures, the smaller ones; he recognizes a frame, and his pulse grows louder in his ears.

It’s a picture of his dad. The one he’s always kept with him, that he takes everywhere he’s ever moved to. In the very frame, with that very chip taken off of the ceramic corner. Gou had done that, had accidentally knocked the frame off of Rin’s bedside table when he was twelve. But he’d never changed it, had always kept the picture closed tight in that frame. And here it is now, in Haru’s house. Next to a picture of Rin and Gou as kids, a picture of Rin’s mom—and a final picture of Rin and Haru, seemingly candid, sitting next to each other at a table in a restaurant. Looking at each other and nothing else, completely unaware of their picture being taken.

Rin doesn’t remember any of it.

“Jeez,” he says, “am I in the twilight zone?”

“Rin.”

Rin looks so fast he feels something snap, then barely has the time to wonder if it was something vital before he’s eye-to-eye with Haru, very awake and—apparently—much more swift on his feet than Rin’s ever known him to be.

“Christ, Haru!” he scowls, gripping at his neck. “You trying to kill me, or what?!”

Haru’s expression doesn’t change. “What,” he says, then unhesitatingly reaches up and touches Rin’s hand. “Are you alright?”

Rin flinches, but doesn’t pull away far enough in time before Haru’s fingers are pressing into the junction of his neck and shoulder. He feels his mouth hanging open, closes it as soon as he’s aware. “Yeah, I’m fine. An aneurysm closer to death, maybe, but altogether fine.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Haru says, sounding tired. “Why are you up?”

“Why—” Rin doesn’t want to bother looking for a clock to confirm what he already knows. “Haru, it’s gotta be almost noon.”

Haru grunts. “We were up past four.”

That alone almost makes Rin laugh out loud. Even if Rin’s been capable of staying up pretty late in the past, he’s never known Haru to be someone who could even make it past midnight on a  regular basis. Besides, they’d gone to bed early so that they could wake up and beat the rain. He remembers both the conversation and the time on his phone when he fell asleep.

“No,” Rin says, pausing only because he remembers this is likely a dream, and then again, “no, we weren’t.”

Now Haru’s just starting to look concerned, a little less like the constant boredom Rin’s been trying to read through since they were little; there are lines on his face where Rin’s never seen them before, a different, unshielded unease. Rin feels cornered by it, like the openness of it could swallow him whole if Haru really wanted it to.

"Whatever," is the response. "I'll make tea."

Rin takes a deep breath. "Coffee?"

"Right. Sure," Haru says, and walks past him into the kitchen. Rin turns, still baffled by his surroundings, baffled more by the fact that Haru isn't noticing.

"Um," he says. "Um, I can make it."

Haru turns and gives him an odd look. Then he nods, and Rin joins him.

It takes time for the water to heat up, because Haru's never been so good at updating anything electric and that apparently hasn't even changed in whatever kind of dream Rin must be having right now. But telling himself that he must be dreaming doesn't stop the odd feeling under his skin, and it prickles up even more when he opens the cabinet and sees a familiar set of mugs.

"Are these," he stops, clears his throat, and takes one out. He almost feels absurd asking, but holds up the mug anyway, for Haru to see. "Are these my mom's?"

Haru looks, stares for a moment, then nods. "We must have forgotten them here before we left last time. I'll try to remember to pack them the next time we leave, if you want to bring them."

Rin blinks. "We—if—what?"

The kettle starts to whistle, and Haru takes it off, either having not heard Rin or choosing not to answer him. Rin says, "What are you talking about?"

This time, Haru undoubtedly hears. He looks at Rin, and Rin must look confused because Haru mirrors the look curiously. “Rin, are you sure you’re okay?” 

Has he always slept shirtless? Rin notices it suddenly, and just as suddenly can’t remember any time he’s spent the night with Haru that he hadn’t worn a sleep shirt, even on the hottest summer nights. He’s called Haru crazy for it before, but Haru’s always said he’s more comfortable sleeping with one on.

“Rin?”

“I’m fine,” Rin says. “Sorry. I’m fine. Having a weird morning.”

Haru blinks. Then shrugs. “We just got here. It’s going to be weird until we settle all the way in again.”

Rin says, “Um.”

“We should unpack later, though.” Haru yawns, and Rin’s too busy feeling confused to catch it. “We only have the stuff we left behind upstairs, which are things we don’t really wear.”

“Um,” Rin repeats. “What?”

Haru reaches out, takes the edge of Rin’s tank top in between his fingers. “We’re spending the summer here, Rin. Not just a few days. It’s longer than the last time we visited.”

This time, Rin’s flinch is noticeable. Haru drops the fabric he’d been holding, but the confusion in his eyes turns into something else this time, quickly.

"What's wrong," he says. Doesn't ask.

Rin opens his mouth, then closes it. He feels as though he's only said one word in the past ten minutes, but he says it again unthinkingly. "What?"

That odd look remains, unyielding, even as Haru looks down at the floor for a few seconds before looking back up. “I get it if you're still mad at me.”

Mad?

What did he have to be mad about? Rin can’t remember the last time he was mad at Haru. Frustrated with, insulted by, or confused about, sure. But he can’t remember truly feeling _angry_ with Haru since they’d become friends again.

“I’m not mad at you,” he decides on saying, before he takes too long to answer. Haru looks unconvinced all the same, and Rin wonders what this Haru—this already clearly different Haru, this dream Haru—is thinking about that would convince him that Rin was _mad_ at him. “Why would I be mad?”

“You didn’t really seem like you wanted to stay here this summer,” Haru says, quickly; like he’s been waiting for an opportunity to say it.

But Rin can’t respond to that. Not when he hardly understands why they’re here in the first place, why it’s apparently only for the summer, why that would make Rin angry, and why Haru would even be concerned about that in the first place. Where were they before this? And why are they living together in the first place?

Rin presses his hands to his eyes, exhales and shakes his head like that could scatter the jumbled thoughts away. “Haru,” he says, “I’m just—really tired right now. I think. I don't even know what's going on.”

“Okay,” Haru says. “Then let’s go back to bed.”

Rin starts to nod, then remembers Haru’s room, and one bed, and no futon. By the look in Haru’s eyes, he should really say yes; he looks so confused, almost as much as Rin, that refusing might be more exhausting than it's worth. In the end he says, “I'm not … body-tired, just. My mind’s tired. I can’t think straight, you know? I really just need to—”

“Rin,” Haru says, then steps close—too close, much closer than Rin’s used to—and drops his head, right onto Rin’s shoulder. His hands fall warm at Rin’s waist, voice dropping lower that Rin’s ever heard it before. His mouth is close to Rin's collarbone when he says, again, “Let's go back to bed.”

Haru’s hair brushes up against Rin’s jawline, clean and smelling like soap; his body is surprisingly warm given how cold he normally acts, how cold he isn’t acting right now, and Rin’s mind is quick enough for him to know that he could be tripping his tongue over a hundred different obscenities and should ask a thousand questions but his mouth and body move slower—Haru’s hands are so gentle at his sides. All he can really manage is, “I need to take a shower.”

He’s too rough when he pushes Haru away from him, presses hard enough at Haru’s shoulders that Haru goes stumbling back out of the way and Rin bolts, for the hallway, for the bathroom, for solitude away from whatever the fuck’s going on.

He thinks he might hear Haru call out after him, but he slams the sliding door to the bathroom shut and locks it before he even thinks twice about replying. Then he turns the shower on, strips his clothing down—he doesn’t wait for the water to get hot to get under it, and the piercing cold that immediately stings him is all the confirmation he needs to know he really isn’t dreaming.

He’d woken up next to Haru—shirtless, peaceful Haru—had gone down to the kitchen, had seen his own things tangled up in the familiarity of Haru’s belongings. Haru had touched him too much, had gotten too close, had asked him to come to bed in a voice Rin would never have dared to imagine him using. He waits under the freezing cold spray, waits until it turns lukewarm, then until it's hot enough to singe him. None of it brings him back to the futon in the middle of Haru’s bedroom floor.

Rin’s hair falls damp into his eyes, and it’s when he moves to brush it back that he notices.

His hair is longer than it was yesterday. With this comes the extra heaviness in his limbs, the thicker stubble along his jaw, and confusion dissolving thin and cold in the pit of his stomach.

Rin stands under the water for ten more minutes, fogging up every glass surface in the room and collecting moisture on the walls, before he gets out. He drips everywhere, all over the floor, until he finds a folded towel and pulls it around himself. Just to be sure, he pinches the back of his own hand and twists, hard.

Nothing. But he’d been expecting that, anyway.

“Shit,” he says, and leaves his clothes behind on the bathroom floor.

Haru isn’t in the bedroom when Rin returns to it, but the evidence of the sheets pulled halfway down the bed is enough to set his heart beating unsteadily against his ribcage—he opens up Haru’s closet. There are only a few shirts of his own that he recognizes hanging up, but there’s a divider splitting the clothes in half that tells him all he needs to know.

Rin goes for the dresser next, pulls open the top drawer, and because he needs two hands for it, pulls on the first pair of underwear he sees and drops his towel to the floor, hair still matted damp to the back of his neck. There isn’t any clothing in the drawers he recognizes immediately as his, but if the closet wasn’t enough, the neat little box of pressed ties on top of the dresser is. It’s a box he’s had since he was eight years old.

Three soft knocks beckon his gaze to the door, but don’t quite snap him out of it. His mind is still racing when Haru comes in, concern drawn up all over his features.

“Rin,” he says, “what are you doing?”

The last time Rin saw that much concern in Haru’s eyes, his chest was thick with fury; the sun obscured by the branches of a shaken tree. But he’s not running off the daze of a loss, and he doesn’t feel like crying now. He steps away from the dresser, then tips his gaze toward the floor.

“What day is it?”

For a second, Haru says nothing. Then, “Sunday.”

“No,” Rin says. “Haru, what _day_ is it?”

Because, and only because, he needs to hear it. He can't look on his own, won't find out on his own because he doesn't think he can trust his own eyes in the state he's in, to either take in or believe anything they see. He needs to hear it, from Haru's own mouth, in Haru's ever-steady bluntness, from a voice that doesn't manipulate and won't lie to him. 

“June twenty-second,” Haru says slowly, bemused. “Why?”

“What year?”

“It’s 2015, Rin. What are you—”

He might keep talking, but Rin doesn’t pay attention long enough to hear it; nor would the thrumming in his ears allow him to if he tried. The rushing in his head makes him dizzy, aware and not aware of himself all at once, both in and out of his own body. He must stumble towards the bed because he feels it sink under his weight, feels guiding hands gripping his biceps so he can keep sitting up straight instead of toppling right over. June, in 2015. He's twenty-five years old, on that timeline. Eight years older than he was when he fell asleep.

Haru's face appears next to his, wide-eyed and so clearly concerned that Rin feels a little suffocated. 

"Rin. Rin, do I need to call someone?"

"No," Rin manages. It's all he can manage. He's not dreaming. "Haru, I need you to tell me if you're fucking with me. This isn't funny."

"Rin. I don't know what you're talking about."

"2015," he says. "It's 2015?"

"Are you feeling sick?" Haru asks, pressing the backs of his fingers to Rin's forehead. "Yes. It's 2015. Why?"

Rin stares at the floor, refusing to make eye contact even when Haru ducks in the way of his line of sight. This is a different Haru, one he's not used to. He's caught between feeling comforted and confronted, by a familiar face with an unfamiliar tendency to touch.

He opens his mouth, just to breathe better, but betrays his own mistrust and says, "Because I fell asleep in 2007 last night."

Haru squints. "You what?"

"When I fell asleep," Rin says slowly, patience thinning. "It was 2007. I was seventeen. Last night."

"Rin, that isn't funny," Haru says, voice on the edge of a sigh. 

"I'm not kidding." Rin leans away when Haru reaches for him again, looks at him, purposefully, in the eye. "Haru. I'm not kidding."

Haru leans back, too, then picks up both of his legs to sit better on the mattress. Rin watches him, feeling scrutinized.

And Haru says, "Okay."

"I'm serious."

"And I'm listening."

Rin looks from Haru to the floor, then the floor to the window. "I was spending the night here, because I missed the last train. You rolled out a futon for me and we went to bed early because it was supposed to rain today, and we wanted to run before it started. We weren't—we weren't asleep in the same bed, and my pictures and clothes weren't here. And I'm honestly still not sure that I'm not fucking dreaming."

"You're not," Haru says, evenly. "But I do think you need sleep."

"I'm not—" Rin huffs. "I'm not tired."

"You're something, if the last thing you remember is falling asleep eight years ago. If you can't remember anything else we should go to a hospital."

Rin can't help the scoff. "This isn't amnesia, Haru, I didn't—hit my head or suffer a goddamn stroke recently, did I?"

Haru says nothing.

"And it's more than just missing pieces, or a blur. I can remember last night exactly as it was—for fuck's sake, I can tell you what shirt you were wearing."

"I really don't think that means anything," Haru says.

"But it doesn't ... _feel_ like I'm just forgetting." Rin leans back, frustration building in the back of his throat.

"So ... what are you saying?"

"I don't know! Just—"

"Calm down," Haru says, and Rin only realizes his hands have been grabbing at his hair when Haru reaches for them and pulls them down. "Calm down."

"I know I sound crazy."

"You always sounds crazy," Haru says. "It's one of the things I've gotten used to."

Rin inhales, exhales. His own confusion is starting to irritate him. "What does that even mean?"

"It means what I said. I'm used to you sounding crazy." He holds Rin's hands a little bit more firmly, too purposeful to be accidental, and with everything else it's too much, not by a little but by a lot, and all at once—Rin tugs his hands away and frowns.

He asks before he can contain it. "Why do you keep ... touching me?"

Rin doesn't immediately regret asking, but quiet takes a hold of the room nonetheless. Haru stares at him for a while; Rin doesn't keep track of exactly how long, but it's long enough that the silence starts to feel tight and frightening around his chest. The air hangs heavy, and Haru's expression turns from one kind of blank to another, a barely-noticeable change of degree that Rin's lucky to even notice. "Haru?"

"Why don't you want me touching you?" Haru asks, hands still between them on the mattress.

"I'm—that isn't—what?" Rin stammers. "Personal space is pretty much your trademark, Haru, what are you talking about?"

"That's not true."

"Apparently not, because you've been touching me all morning." Rin feels exhausted, feeling too much too quickly, fluctuated. "Since when are you okay with that?"

Haru's eyes start to take on a quality of something close to horror, which Rin doesn't like at all—but it turns to irritation just as quickly, and Haru starts to get up. "That isn't funny, Rin."

"What? What isn't—Haru, I have no idea what you're talking about! Jesus, haven't you been listening?"

"I get that you're mad about staying here." Haru's foot gets caught in one of the sheets, catching him, yanking him back—somehow he's graceful as he stumbles and grunts. "And I get that you didn't want to have dinner with everyone tonight, but you don't have to make up something this stupid—"

"We're having dinner with _who?"_

Haru just gets angrier. "I don't want you to be unhappy, Rin. But we're both going to be unhappy if you can't act your age every time something doesn't go your way. You told me yourself that a relationship means sacrifice sometimes, and you seemed fine with coming here all week—"

Rin thinks, _What?_  Then, _oh God._ Then again, in an echo that rings in his ears like a clap of thunder, a flash of lightning that strikes him in the throat and bolts straight through him. 

"Relationship?" he asks, though it sounds like his voice has only partially come through. Haru had still been talking but he stops now, looking at Rin with an absence of all the anger he'd been showing before and with something much more puzzled. Rin tries again. "Fuck. Haru, are we dating?"

"That's enough," Haru says, and heads for the door.

Rin scrambles after him, hands nearly slamming into the ground in his haste to stop Haru from leaving. "Haru, I'm not fucking around! Hey!" He manages to get in between Haru and the doorway, but Haru nearly collides with him because of it. "Haru, look at me." 

It looks like the last thing Haru wants to do; there's another look that Rin doesn't like that's starting to develop in his eyes, in the line of his mouth. He looks very much like he's considering just pushing through Rin to get out, but after a few seconds he stiffens his shoulders and looks Rin in the eye.

"Look," Rin breathes, not wasting a second. "Use this as fucking proof, okay? If I—Christ. Would I ever lie to you about something like this? If we were ... if we  _are_ seeing each other? Especially if we're doing that, and—if it _were_ amnesia, don't you think that if I just couldn't remember the last eight years, I'd still have feelings that deep for you? Haru, I fuck up sometimes, but I'm not just a shitty _person_. I'd never make you think I couldn't remember it if—if I knew that—"

That Rin at twenty-five has Haru. In so many more ways that Rin at seventeen does, or even knew for sure that he wanted. 

"You're not making any sense," Haru says.

"Yeah," Rin croaks. "You don't have to tell me."

The feeling itself is neither pleasant or repulsive, or maybe it's both, but it is heavy. Haru's looking at Rin in a way that Rin's rarely ever seen before, but isn't trying to hide it away. This Haru is so much more open, and now he's here thinking that Rin's taking advantage of it.

But he also feels like, in Haru's silence, Rin's being given a chance. "Haru, listen to me. I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about either, but I wouldn't make up something this fucking stupid. I don't know what's going on, and it's scaring me, and I'm not lying to you. And I think I'm close to a mental break so it'd be real great if you could go a little easy on me, okay?"

There is a moment of stillness and quiet. Then Haru comes closer again, and thankfully doesn't try to get around Rin to leave. "Don't be so dramatic."

Rin sighs. "You said that already."

"And it's because I have to say it that I want to believe you," Haru says. "The Rin I know has actually grown up a little."

"Shut up."

"Just as hot-headed," Haru continues. "But he's grown up. And you're right. You wouldn't lie about something this stupid."

Rin feels his chest sink with relief. "I wouldn't. Never." Haru sniffs and crosses his arms over his chest, and Rin wants to step closer to him and bolt away an equal amount. "Haru. Even with amnesia, I wouldn't forget how I'd feel about you. If we're ... together. The feeling wouldn't go away, would it?"

"I'm not a doctor," Haru mutters.

"And I don't need one," Rin says quickly. "Trust me on this, Haru."

"I am," Haru says. His voice is as even as ever, but open. 

Rin nods, because it feels as good as it can get. "Okay." He swallows, repeating it over and over in his head. _Okay. Okay._

"Okay," Haru says. "Rin, breathe."

He does. He breathes slowly, deeply. "I swear," he says, pulse finally dulling down.

Haru just nods, slowly, not looking like he's entirely on board but like he's willing to listen, and that's enough. He drops his arms from his chest, and lets Rin take a few more breaths.

"Sorry," Rin whispers, for no real reason at all. For every reason he can think of. He glances around the room, and glances down at himself. It's only for Haru's composure that he has the ability to say, "I ... don't really know what to do, now."

But Haru doesn't need any time. "Now," he starts, and his eyes tip behind Rin, purposefully toward the stairs. "You help me clean. We're having dinner."

 

 

"You're not answering any of my questions," Rin says later, once he's helping Haru drag their suitcases up the steps.

"Because you're asking too many," Haru replies. He's gotten dressed and so has Rin, with clothes that Haru gave him once they'd both calmed down fully, or at least as close to fully calm as they've gotten as of yet. "I don't have time to tell you everything that's happened in the past eight years. And I don't think you're supposed to ask questions when you're a time traveler."

Rin all but squawks. "I'm not a  _time traveler."_

"I don't think you're supposed to ask questions when you spontaneously end up in the future."

"Okay," Rin says, exasperated. "I  _get_ it."

They've already cleared the kotatsu off downstairs; Haru had taken all the magazines and put them in a box, where Rin couldn't see them or figure out why they were important; and Rin had pressed all the schedules into piles organized by week, which Haru had pinned up. In this time Rin had limited his questioning to smaller things, like where Sousuke was, how the others were doing, if his mother was still around. Haru had answered each of them frustratingly simply, and vaguely, but Rin's willing to take anything he can get.

Now, they're getting the suitcases to the room, and Haru pushes them all against the wall beside the dresser and unzips them. There are clothes of all colors and fabrics inside, and Haru quickly gets to work on separating them.

"Sorry," Rin says, settling down onto the floor next to him. "I just don't know ... how."

Haru is quiet for a minute. Then he asks, "How?"

"To not ask questions. To react. I've been awake for all of two hours and my whole life has been jumpstarted."

"Sorry," Haru says, but doesn't sound sorry. 

Rin grunts, shifts, swallows. He does anything he needs to in order to feel like the room isn't closing in on him, then says, "We're not—"

"We're not married," Haru says, and Rin's sort of thankful he didn't have to finish the question himself. "Just dating."

"Just," Rin scoffs.

Haru glares. "Marriage is a lot more than dating."

"How long have we been together?"

There's a shirt that Haru has to refold a couple of times, just to get it correctly creased. "A while."

"So helpful." 

"We've been living together for three years."

Rin makes a choking sound, one that he feels get stuck in his throat. "Jeez. Three years?"

Haru shrugs. "Feels like less, a lot of the time."

"Because we ended up in the same place?"

"Because," Haru says, "it was convenient. And made sense."

"Where were we staying before getting here?"

Haru doesn't answer all at once, but doesn't give anything away in his expression. "Tokyo."

Rin nods, a million new questions coming with every answer. He watches Haru separate two shirts and comes up with another one. "Why didn't we unpack when we got here?"

Something twitches, around Haru's mouth, before he answers. "We were tired."

"You said we were up past four."

"Too many questions."

"That wasn't even a question!"

"You still don't want the answer," Haru says.

Rin narrows his eyes, leans back on his calves. "How would you know that?" 

"Because I know the answer." Rin snorts, or scoffs, or both. "You're not letting me ask you any questions."

"... I didn't know you had any."

"I have a few."

"Okay," Rin says, "um, ask away, I guess."

Haru closes up the first empty suitcase, then opens up one of the drawers of the dresser. He looks at Rin and very seriously asks, "Did you really have feelings for me back then?"

Rin splutters, feeling his ears get hot. "Haru!"

"It's fine if you didn't. You're not acting like you do."

"That's—it isn't ..." Rin coughs, then looks down and away, mumbles, "I guess it depends on when you're talking about."

"Right now. How you are now."

"Now," Rin croaks. His face feels unbearably hot. "I ... have, I feel—something."

Haru just stares.

"Don't look at me like that! God!" He drops his face into his hands. "I don't feel nothing, okay? Just ... not as much as I'd feel if we'd been dating for literal years. You know?"

"I know," Haru nods. "I was curious."

Rin slowly, but eventually, drops his hands. He has no right, really, to judge Haru on being curious.

"When did I ..." he eventually says but trails off, gestures in hopes that Haru will get the idea—but he's met with a blank look, so continues, "tell you. How I feel?"

Haru places a stack of shirts into the bottom drawer and laughs, through his nose. "I'm pretty sure you have to figure that out on your own."

"But I said something first?"

"You said something," Haru smiles, "at some point."

Rin feels himself start to go red. "Are you making fun of me?"

"No. You get embarrassed too easily."

Rin wants to deny this, but really has no ground for it. "Whatever. At least I have some shame."

"I have some," Haru says, finishing up with the clothing he'd folded from the first suitcase. The other two, he leaves behind and stands up. "Come help me make dinner."

"What about the other suitcases?"

Haru shrugs. "They're mostly not mine," he says. "You ... Rin can unpack them, when he's here."

It looks painful to say, and is odd to hear. And Rin is left with a conclusion: his being here not only means his own absence from his own timeline, but also the absence of this Rin, from Haru. 

This shouldn't make him feel guilty, because he hasn't ended up here on purpose, but the guilt finds him anyway, and he can't meet Haru's eye. He can only nod, then stand up after Haru's passed him. "Right."

It's weird, thinking that another version of himself is lost somewhere, too. He has the body, but not the knowledge, and not the memory; is the Rin that he's supposed to be in his own time, back in high school? Or is he somewhere unreachable? If he is, Rin doesn't know how to get him back. He hardly wants to think about being here in the first place, or that it's weird, or that he doesn't belong, or worry about getting back to where he should be. This feels like the plot of a movie, or the bulk of a bad dream; not something he should be living in real life.

If it lasts longer than a day, is he supposed to live this Rin's life tomorrow, too? What if goes on even longer? Is there something he's supposed to do, or realize? 

How long until Haru stops believing Rin's gut instinct and drags him to a hospital? How long until Rin starts believing that this is just amnesia, himself? Thinking about it now makes him feel nauseous. It would be too much like giving up; on the eight years he skipped over, on building up his own life on his own, by himself, and on Haru, who, if not facing the reality of this now, will have to at some point. And in result, accept the version of Rin that can't recall any part of their romantic relationship.

"Rin?"

Rin starts to say something, something he hadn't planned for; and so all that comes out is a noise like a choke. And he has no follow up to this either, so instead he walks past Haru towards the stairs.

They get to the kitchen again before Rin finally thinks of something. "So, what are the others like now?"

Haru doesn't miss a beat. "Exactly the same. For the most part."

"Nagisa still a walking firecracker?"

In the kitchen, Haru's smile is fond, and dreadful, and plenty of other things. He hands Rin a pot.

"Always."

 

 

Twenty-five treats Makoto well, Rin finds out.

On the other hand, twenty-four isn't a much different version of Nagisa; he bounds through the door with as much enthusiasm as an eight-year-old on a sugar high, and twenty-four apparently means a shorter haircut for Rei and broader shoulders cutting across his neck.

Makoto at twenty-five means a degree and a teaching job, though, and a swim coach gig on the side. Haru feeds him the information with as much subtlety as he can clearly manage, and Rin pretends he's known it all along. He has to wrap his head tightly around Nagisa's psych degree, around Rei's ability to speak fluent English, and around Haru's ability to understand it just as fluently but not to reply much at all. Around the very real belonging-ness he feels to Haru here, a new kind, a mutual kind, that won't leave him alone. 

Eight years, he thinks slowly—while feeling extremely seventeen—is a pretty long time.

The worst part is not knowing what he knows, or what he should know—because this means he can't ask anything for the risk of asking something the Rin of this timeline would clearly know the answer to. Makoto and Rei are forgiving of those mistakes, but Nagisa would not be. He would notice, immediately, and he would point it out as quickly as he'd notice. And Rin couldn't handle the suspicion over all the confusion he's already trying to suppress.

(Read: his being here, his missing out on eight years of his life, his lack of belonging in this timeline, and his dating Haru.)

"Rei and I got an apartment in Tokyo," Nagisa says when they're eating, an hour into their visit, and Rin feels no surprise. "It has three bedrooms! And the coolest view. Rin-chan, Haru-chan; when you go back to Tokyo, visit us, okay?"

"We will," Haru says.

"You said that last time!"

Makoto laughs; the same tempering, calming laugh as always. "Hey, they're busy. You wouldn't have much free time either, if your schedule was like theirs."

Nagisa moans unhappily. "Don't give them an  _excuse_ , Mako-chan."

"We can find time," Haru says. "It'll be easy if you're closer. We can work it around our schedules."

"See?" Nagisa looks triumphant, and ridiculous, too, with a mouth full of food. "Not so hard at all!"

Makoto gives Rin a look that reads heavily like  _I tried_ , which Rin appreciates and wants to laugh at, because Nagisa is infectious but tiring, safe only in small doses. And this evidently has not been a trait that is capable of wearing out.

"Our schedule _is_ busy," Rin says, a statement to everyone but Haru, who he looks at very carefully, very pointedly.

Haru makes a noise through his nose that sounds like a laugh. "Not that busy."

"If it's too much trouble for you to reach out, I'd be happy to do the planning," Rei says, glasses—black ones—slipping a little down his nose. "And we could come visit you, so that you don't have to go out of your way. You have a spare bedroom in the apartment you're leasing, I understand?"

"Yes," Haru says, quickly, then shoves an uncomfortably large amount of rice into his mouth. Rin watches him do this, feeling just as awkward, just as cornered with the knowledge that there’s another bedroom in their Tokyo apartment that neither of them has to use.

"Then it's settled!"

"We could come visit you on your anniversary!" Nagisa trills, as if nothing else in the world could make Rin sit up straighter, could make his pulse start hammering in his ears.

Haru grunts. "Nagisa—"

"It's been five years now, right?" Makoto asks, innocently, painlessly.

Rin chokes. On his own saliva, on air, whatever—there's something in his throat all of a sudden and he chokes on it, so badly that he hunches over the table and hacks until it hurts to breathe. There's water in his eyes and his stomach is gone entirely, maybe lost down in his shoes or in the ground, or on some separate plane of existence where he wishes the rest of him could be, too.

"Are you alright?" Makoto asks him, and Rin doesn't even have to look to predict the kind of face he's making. 

"Fine," he spits, reaching for his glass of water and downing it. And because he can, because Haru isn't even looking at him, "Yeah, five years."

Haru says, "That's during the summer. We won't be back yet."

"Aw, you guys never let us in on anything romantic you do."

Rei touches Nagisa's shoulder. "That's a private matter, Nagisa-kun."

"That's so boring," Nagisa replies, not missing a beat, in a deadpan that could rival Haru's.

"We're not romantic," Haru says. "Not really."

"That can't be true!"

Rin refills his glass with more water, thinking that all of this banter, with the new topics at hand, is uncomfortably like high school. If they weren't talking about this, if they were talking about time trials or studying or just picking on each other, Rin could turn way and pretend he's back where he was last night. It's been a whole of eight hours since he woke up in Haru's bed, and it's all been jarring, has all felt like years instead of hours, but nothing has been as disturbing as this conversation, being so close and so far from what he knows by heart.

He takes another sip of water and, feeling fueled by this displacement, says, "I'd like to think I'm romantic."

Haru turns to look at him. It's another question that only the two of them know is a question. "You try too hard."

"At least I try," Rin says. "You have the romantic capability of a cardboard box."

Haru flushes; Rin had a feeling he'd hit the nail on the head, and now he knows he has.

"I told you how I felt first."

"I bet I _realized_ how I felt first."

Haru huffs. Nagisa guesses, not so subtly, "Australia!"

Rin snaps around to look at him. In English he says, " _No_."

"Then when?"

"That's—"

"It's a fair question, Rin," Haru says—all at once, Rin regrets provoking him. "When?"

Rei and Makoto have taken to paying very close attention to their meals, but Nagisa couldn't be any more enthralled by Rin and Haru, staring each other down. Rin thinks that he's probably lost Haru by now, probably has him entirely convinced that the entirety of his time skip has been a hoax, all because he'd let himself succumb to the kind of competition neither of them can ever seem to avoid.

"It should be obvious," Rin says.

But Haru always meets him halfway, for better or worse. "What if I told you it isn't?"

He can feel the heat on his cheeks, even through the knowledge that this clearly won't be the first time that this Haru has ever heard this; because now is likely not the time nor place for Rin to say it at all. But here, he feels so out of control, so far from where he's sitting and Haru is  _looking_ at him, calculating and deep in a way the Haru he knows has never looked at him long enough to be.

"It," Rin starts, stops. Breathes, then starts again. "You know, I don't think I've ever felt more vulnerable than when you found me under that tree."

Somebody, likely Nagisa, makes a noise. Haru's gaze doesn't budge.

Rin had been hoping that that would be enough, but this hope is no good. He looks from Haru's eyes to the table, catches a stare out of the corner of his eye, then turns back. "There's never been a more confusing part of my life, or a part as dark as when I came back and thought you didn't care about swimming with me. Or swimming at all. Or ... me, at all. Then you came after me, and you told me you knew who you were swimming for, and I was terrified it wasn't gonna be me because I thought that was all I meant to you. And then you took that and you just—flipped it, proved me completely fucking wrong."

He's making a confession; a real one. He feels it in the very core of himself, in the parts of him he's hidden away ever since he started to understand them. It's a confession of feelings, not things he thinks about or even knows, but things that he's experienced, things he can see Haru and feel so grateful for. "Nothing was clear to me until you did that. I'd spent so long feeling like nothing was real, but you made everything so easy. Just like that. Jesus, Haru. How could that not be when I realized?"

Realized, because he thinks that he had been falling for a very long time. Before he was even aware he could have those feelings and long after he decided he was incapable of having them. There was never denial with Haru; just blind ignorance, then clarity. 

"You knew that," he says—because there's shock in the way Haru's looking at him, because Haru must have known, because he can feel three more stares and he's not about to let them think that this is the first time Haru's ever known. "Haru, you knew that."

"I knew," Haru agrees, snapping out of it.

Suddenly aware of how far forward he's been leaning towards Haru, Rin collapses backwards in his chair. Makoto and Rei have started talking distractedly amongst themselves, like they hadn't heard anything, like they weren't listening, but Nagisa bears no shame. 

Haru says, more quietly, "I knew."

"Rin-chan," Nagisa says, voice watery. "That _was_ romantic."

"Give me a break," Rin groans, and Makoto takes the cue to get dessert.

 

 

They leave after it's gotten dark, and Rin starts to think, absurdly, that maybe there's a point to all of this.

He thinks it when he watches Nagisa walk out through the front door, listens to him insist over and over that they make plans again soon, and thinks that his confession was entirely pointless.

Because, in the end, Rin had made it at an extraordinarily inappropriate time; it was random, and uncalled for, and uncomfortable. He'd had no real reason to make it, had nothing to prove, and could have easily brushed off Haru's insistence. It wouldn't have cost him anything, in the long run.

There had been no apparent reason, no apparent cause. Just like there hadn't been one for him waking up here, in the first place.

He helps clean up from dinner, elbow touching Haru's again and again while they wash and dry the dishes. And he keeps thinking of this over and over, until he gets tired of thinking it and Haru says, "It's late."

Up in Haru's bedroom, Rin feels a lack of the dread he'd been expecting—a lack of it because there's nothing else to feel in place of it, just an absence of where he knows it would be if he were feeling it like he was this morning. And he feels the silence, too, hanging heavily around the two of them as Haru opens up one of the drawers and takes out clothes to sleep in.

Because he can, and because he's curious, Rin asks, "Are there a lot of other things that have happened that I don't know about?"

"Yes," Haru says, without any pause.

"Can I ask?"

"Yeah."

Rin kicks softly at the floor, and asks the first thing that comes to mind. "Do I ever win gold swimming freestyle?"

This time, there is a pause. "... At the Olympics?"

"Jesus, Haru, where else?"

"No," Haru says, but he doesn't give Rin the chance to feel disappointed at all. "Not freestyle."

Rin can't help the grin, can barely contain the energy that bolts through him at the implication—he settles for a triumphant kind of laugh. "Not free, huh? What, was there someone better than me that I couldn't beat?"

Haru meets Rin's eyes, mouth twitching upwards on a quivering curve, and Rin  _knows_. 

"You could say that," he says, and Rin's heart swells tightly against his ribcage. "You're making this difficult. That's it for questions."

"Fine," Rin gasps, breathless in his own amazement. "That's fine."

Twisting a shirt between his hands, Haru watches Rin breathe and grin and vibrate, then seems to come to an end of an inner battle because he sighs before he does anything. And what he does is step closer, not enough to make Rin step back but enough that he can reach out, brushing some of Rin's bangs back from his eyes and looking into them. And Rin, so tangled up in wonder, so tangled up in this future, lets him.

"You really are from back then," Haru says, carefully, fingers pressed softly into Rin's temple. He tips his head to the side, the line of his jaw catching the warm light of his lamp. "Aren't you?"

Rin doesn't have the heart, nor does he feel the need, to pull away. "Did you not believe me before?"

"Would you?"

And as much as Rin would like to say yes, as much as he wants to pretend he would, he knows, through his own stubbornness and Haru's terrible skill at pranks and jokes, that he wouldn't. "What gave me away?"

Haru's mouth flattens out more than normal, contemplating something. His eyes are on his fingers in Rin's hair, at Rin's skin, but then they come back to Rin's eyes. And Rin thinks very solidly for a moment that if this is what his future has to promise him, then he is unbelievably lucky. 

"Rin's told me when he realized he loved me before," Haru slowly says, taking his hand back. Rin's bangs fall ungracefully down. "But I think I heard all of it for the first time tonight."

"Oh," Rin says. "You're not gonna fall in love with me instead, are you?"

It isn't really funny, given their circumstances, so Rin's grateful for Haru's smile. "Not me."

Rin grunts, shoving his hands into his pockets. "I think I figured something out, too. Why I'm here."

"Okay."

"And I think ... I don't know if I just jumped into his body or if this is some trading places shit, but I think this is for a reason. I think it's jinxed."

Haru blinks. "What do you mean?"

"Did you have a fight before this happened?" Rin asks, more abruptly than he probably should. "You said this morning that you thought I was mad at you about something."

Haru's expression stays the same, but the look in his eyes doesn't; something flashes there, marking his understanding. "You think you're here because we fought?"

"I think I'm here because in my timeline, you and I are finally in a good fucking place," Rin says. "When we fight we mean well. We don't let our history get in the way of us anymore, and we're not letting the future get in the way of it either. Not now, not anymore. We're just Rin and Haru. Whatever. Against the world."

And as Rin says it, he realizes how long it took for them to get to that point. Years of separation and a train wreck coming together again, spending months picking up the pieces and fitting it together into a friendship they could actually manage. And Haru, strong Haru, fragile only when he thinks he is Haru, trying so hard to make everything work when Rin was too selfish to notice. But with this comes a new nervousness, and a hope to grow more, and into something more. Something Rin probably needed to know for sure it was okay to hope for.

Haru looks very much like he's turning it all over in his head, like it's making sense to him but he doesn't know why. He says, "We fought about where we would stay for the summer."

"I didn't want to come back here?"

"You were fine with coming back here. You just wanted to spend the summer traveling more." Haru shrugs. "I was sick of traveling, and you ... Rin thought I was just dismissing something he thought would be romantic. It blew up into something bigger than it really was."

Rin rolls back on his heels. "Sounds like us." 

Haru hums his agreement, and Rin thinks that for two people that are as stubborn and as competitive as they are, as hot-headed as they are, as proud as they are, they do pretty well for themselves. Peace never lasts too long with them, because they're wired to clash, but they've always been magnetized to each other regardless. And that's been fitting. Haru, who could care less about rules, about conventionality; Rin, who never desires things in moderation. Wanting each other seems like the worst kind of curse.

But standing here and looking at this Haru like he is now, and seeing the light behind his eyes and the fondness in them even as he talks about the lowest points, Rin knows he couldn't ever choose anything else. And he thinks that he has known this for a while. Long before waking up this morning. 

"It wasn't a big fight," Haru says. "Not the worst we've had. Not by a long shot."

Rin can only shrug. "Maybe you still needed the reminder."

Again, Haru smiles. "Maybe." Then, "Sorry I made you say what you did. Especially in front of Nagisa."

In this, finally, Rin finds humor. He feels himself grinning, can't get it to go away even when he speaks. "I have a feeling the practice is gonna do me some good in the future."

Haru hums.

"And," Rin says. "I should probably say that I'm sorry, too. I mean—this whole day has kind of sucked for me, but. I'm not ... the version of me that you'd want right now. So it's pretty shitty for you, too."

Maybe he's been thinking this, or maybe he just doesn't have the energy left, but Haru doesn't look even a little surprised to hear it. "It's only been a day," he says. "How much it starts to bother me depends on how long he's gone for. Besides, like you were saying. I think you being here was just a reminder."

Rin pulls a wry smile. "We're like a bad movie."

"Yeah. But a day was enough."

And that's that, and so Rin says nothing. He just takes the clothes that Haru gives him and changes into them, thinking suddenly and very hard that a day was enough, but he has no guarantee whether or not a day was all there is.

"I don't keep a futon anymore," Haru is saying, standing next to the bed. He doesn't say it directly, but this is okay, because Rin can just nod and have that be that.

Rin gets into bed first, not because he gets there first but because Haru lets him, and because getting into a bed that Haru's already in isn't something he thinks he can do without short-circuiting a little, even in a distant world he hasn't come to know. Haru is Haru, undeniably, and regardless of the version.

He wonders if Haru feels the same way about him.

Guilt comes again, with this, because even in being himself, he's not the version this Haru loves, and he doesn't think he could become that so easily, and doesn't want to have to. But if he wakes up here again tomorrow, what then? What about the next day, and the day after that? What else does he have to learn from this, if anything at all? 

He's missed out on eight years of his life, at this point. And if he keeps waking up like he did this morning, eventually he'll have to accept that.

"That won't happen," Haru says, and Rin has no idea if he's spoken aloud or if what he had been thinking was just that obvious. 

He says, "What if it does?"

Haru climbs into bed, unwavering. He doesn't even look at Rin when he answers. "Then we have each other."

Confident Haru. Strong Haru. Fragile only when he thinks he is, Haru. Rin thinks it more sincerely than he ever has before. "Romantic, huh?"

Haru laughs, softly and through his nose. "Goodnight, Rin."

Rin isn't nearly as confident. But he must be reassured, because this all feels very much like a goodbye. Haru smiles at him, and it's the last thing he sees before Haru turns the lamp off, sends the room into darkness. 

Something in the quiet feels okay. Under the blankets, Haru's arm presses firmly against his. 

Rin closes his eyes. "Night, Haru."

 _For what it's worth,_ he thinks, _this feels like goodbye_.

 

 

He's in the futon when he wakes up, but at first, this means nothing. 

There's a feeling in the pit of his stomach, though, that he can only recognize as annoyance. It itches up his chest and shoulders and into his head, and he buries his face into his pillow, repressing the feeling the best he can. 

Then, a pulse. His phone, vibrating. His phone's alarm. This explains the annoyance, the desire to be left alone to sleep longer; it also makes him remember.

Rin sits up, quicker than he's ever done so before, and dives for the device next to the foot of the futon. He fumbles with it, switching off the alarm, heart pounding heavily in his chest; six o'clock in the morning.

He has to force himself to look at Haru's bed. In it is Haru. Past it, through the window, is the evidence of rain already starting to fall. 

Ungracefully, and hard, Rin throws his phone. It lands squarely in the middle of the Haru-shaped lump under a pile of blankets, and this lump says, "Ow."

"Wake up," Rin says, kicking his way out of the futon. "Haru, wake the fuck up." He is in a futon, and this should be enough, but he needs it confirmed.

"Why," Haru croaks.

"Lazy ass, tell me what year it is."

Haru shifts around, then presses himself up; the blankets slide down his back and leave him, hair mussed and eyes tired and so young, to the morning air. "What."

"Tell me. What year. It is."

Haru blinks. Then he looks down at his pillow, squinting at it, like it's going to give him the answer—then he looks back at Rin. "2007."

It's dark out, for it being so early in the morning; the clouds have covered the sun and the world has been tinged a grey-blue as a result, but Haru seems to attract every inch of light there is, gathering around the edges of him, and in the heaviness of his blue eyes. Rin thinks this, without giving himself a single chance to hide it away. Haru looks so nice.

"Thanks," he says, and flops backwards onto his pillow. "It's raining. We can't run."

Haru is looking at him, with an expression that clearly says  _You woke me up just to ask me what year it is?_ But he must figure that this question is not worth pursuing, because he follows Rin's lead in collapsing, and seems to fall asleep as soon as he hits the pillow again.

He breathes so evenly, the line of his back much easier to make out without the comforter on top of it. Rin watches him like this until his eyes become heavy again, watches the version of Haru he knows, and feels like it's safe to do so. He knows what kind of safety his future can hold with Haru, now.

He'll be confused when he wakes up for real, if he remembers this. He'll ask Rin later what the real purpose of waking him up was, or maybe he'll wonder it but not ask, and Rin thinks that's just fine. Eight years from now, there's a version of Haru that knows the answer.

They'll just have to wait until then.

 

 

"This is kind of depressing," Rin says later, though there's humor in it, in watching Haru watch the rain fall heavy through his back door. The lights are on even though it's early, because the clouds have cut away a lot of the natural light, but it's relaxing. 

Haru grunts, acknowledging but not agreeing, and his eyes reflect the rain against the glass. Rin wonders what he's thinking, but it's probably not hard to guess. 

"I meant watching you, not the rain."

"I know."

It's easy to smile, and it's easy to laugh, so Rin does both, but muffles it into the knee he has bent. "We can go swimming another time."

There's stubbornness in Haru's expression, that Rin guesses to be him thinking that another time isn't now, and therefore isn't adequate. But Haru is always calmer around any sort of water, including the rain, and this is probably why he says nothing. Or maybe he can't be bothered; sometimes, Rin can't tell the difference.

He uses the leg he has stretched out to prod Haru with his toes. "Would it kill you to smile?"

Haru's answering stare is gloriously blank. "It might," he says.

"I've never heard of smiling killing anyone."

"And I don't want to be the first."

Rin snorts. "Something tells me you'll be just fine."

"Whatever," Haru says, crossing his arms over the kotatsu and setting his chin on top of them. Rin prods at him again, and he squirms and pushes Rin away. "Stop it." When Rin laughs again, he frowns. "You're in too good of a mood."

"Oh, I'm not allowed to be in good moods?"

"Not if it means you'll be so annoying."

"So hurtful," Rin says, shuffling around so that he can sit next to Haru. "If I were really annoying you, you'd kick me out."

Haru looks at him, sideways. "I'm getting there."

"Liar."

Haru huffs, but doesn't deny it. He dips his head down, so that his chin disappears behind his arms, and Rin watches him, and watches the rain, and feels warm. His time, with another version of Haru, feels nothing like a dream, but he's happy to write it off as one for now. 

Haru says, "I sent my grades in."

"Hm?"

"To a few schools," Haru explains, glancing quickly at Rin. His voice is muffled by the fold of his arms. "Ones that scouted me."

Rin feels his pulse slow, then quicken back up again. "Oh." Haru nods. "Is that ... were you happy, doing that?"

Haru stays quiet for a minute, but moves one leg slowly, and purposefully, to press against Rin's. "You know I am."

Am. Not was, or will be, or might be. Rin can't help the smile. "That's good, Haru. That's really good."

"I didn't get scouted by the school you want to go to."

"That's not the point. That doesn't matter. So long as you're doing what you want to do."

Haru doesn't move his leg away, and doesn't look away from Rin, either. "I don't really know what I'm doing."

"You'll figure it out, though."

"I know."

"And you'll have us there to help you," Rin adds, then more quietly, "you'll have me."

Finally, there is a smile. "I know."

This giddiness in his chest, this belonging, is something he doesn't think is ever going to pass. Rin feels very in the moment, very aware of the present, and so confident in the future. But it is a ways away, and this he knows, and he doesn't have to worry about it. This is, probably, the best feeling.

"You're always there," Haru continues, the spark in his eye so much more meaningful than it would have been before. "Whether I want you to be or not."

"One of my best qualities, don't you think?"

Haru hums, then turns to look back out through the window before Rin can analyze anything in his expression. But Haru's shoulders sink, and his hair is in cowlicks, and his shirt is hanging loose around him; there are so many other things Rin can think about. Now, and tomorrow, and in eight years.

But Haru can never let him have the last word, so on the weight of a breath they both take and at the beginning of a future Rin can see too clearly, he says, "I can think of better ones."


End file.
